Maybe

In my twenties, before I became a therapist, I moved to Northern Virginia for a job I thought I couldn’t pass up.

I moved away from pretty much everybody I knew. I ended up hating the job and found myself lonely and isolated.

Eventually, that turned into anxiety, which then morphed into panic attacks.

It was a rough two years.

But during that time, I started getting into meditation, philosophy, and psychology, mostly because I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me.

I also started taking better care of myself. I started exercising, cooking, eating healthier. I started to feel better.

In retrospect, that time made me grow up some. The habits I developed back then are still part of my life today.

It was also when I decided I couldn’t work in corporate America anymore and wanted to become a therapist. It took a number of years to get into school, graduate, get paid very little while getting licensed, and end up where I wanted to be, but it was very much worth it.

I’m certain I wouldn’t have made those changes had I not gone through that experience.

There’s an old parable I think of pretty often. You have probably heard it before. In my mind, it goes something like this:

Once there was a prosperous farmer.
His farm depended on a good horse
and a strong son to work the fields.

One day, his horse ran away.
The neighbors said,
“This is awful. Now your whole operation will fall apart.”
The farmer shrugged his shoulders and replied, “Maybe.”

Days later the horse returned,
bringing with it a wild horse.
The neighbors said,
“Oh, this is wonderful. Now you’ll be twice as prosperous as before.”
“Maybe,” said the farmer.

While training the wild horse,
his son broke his leg.
The neighbors all agreed,
“Now you must do all the work by yourself. This is terrible for you.”
“Maybe,” he simply said.

Then the army came through
to draft every able-bodied young man
to fight in a distant war.

The farmer’s son, with his broken leg,
was the only boy in town spared.

The neighbors said,
“Now your son will live and prosper. This is fantastic news.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he simply said.

And on it goes.

I think it’s human nature that when something “bad” happens, there’s this voice in our head that wants to immediately declare it all a disaster. I know mine does.

It wants to tell us what this all means, what we should have done differently and how everything is going to play out from this point moving forward.

It’s almost as if we have to say to that voice in our head:

Hold on a second big fella. Let’s just wait and see how this thing plays out.

Napoleon Hill had a saying that within every adversity is the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

Now, that may be a bit of a stretch. Some things are just shitty and need grieving, and it’s delusional and unhealthy to pretend otherwise.

But I do think there can be some benefits within much of the adversity we face if we give it enough time to develop.

And it’s often longer than we feel comfortable giving it. Years, maybe decades. It’s uncomfortable to wait that long before deciding what it all meant.

But sometimes just hanging on to that perspective while we’re going through the hard thing can give us resilience to get on the other side of it.

“Let’s just wait and see,” we remind ourselves.

Holding on to this perspective doesn’t just help us endure adversity. It also skews our brain from our default negative to a slightly sunnier view of things. It’s a rebalancing of sorts.

Not in a blind optimism way, but in a way that we’re intentionally seeking out the benefits that spring from the trials we experience. We are now on the lookout for them.

It’s similar to a gratitude journal. The benefit of a gratitude journal isn’t the three things you write down at seven o’clock on a Tuesday morning. It’s that it inclines the brain more toward gratitude in your everyday life.

The same with this.

It reminds us that all paths lead to the road we’re currently on. If the one we’re currently on is a good one, then the whole journey’s been worth it, and every path has been an essential part of getting to where we are now.

It’s all inseparable. We can’t pick and choose.

And if the road we’re currently on isn’t a good one, maybe we just keep riding it for a bit and see how this thing plays out.

Try This

Think of something you’ve labeled as “bad” this week.

What if you said to yourself, “Maybe, let’s just wait and see.”

And stayed open to letting it play out long enough to see if there is an equal or greater benefit.